Of course, the old witch couldn't live forever, although to me (and I'm sure to many others) it felt like she had.

As much as I'd despised her, I had to admit that she'd become, in her own way, a pillar in the community. Her funeral was well-attended, the little chapel bursting at its seams with snivelling women of all ages. Each one, surely, remembering their gratitude for her awful service. Each one a wicked, wicked sinner. A flood of gorgeous blooms, perhaps one for each seedling she uprooted and cast away, as if no more than a weed.

Here, then, was my chance. To get what I wanted more than anything else: a child born of my body. For that, I had to become what I despised. But I wouldn't step brazenly into her boots, oh no. Her old house on the edge of the forest stayed empty. It resembled, now, truly, a witch's cottage, tumbledown and spooky. It spoke of gingerbread, hot ovens, and cackling.

I made a sign, printed in a meticulous hand, and stuck it to the front door. 

IF YOU REQUIRE MY SERVICES, PLEASE LEAVE YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS IN THE MAILBOX. 

I left a notepad and pencil, and hurried home to bed. Night after night, week after week, no ungodly women seemed to need the service. Having made a deal with the Devil, I prayed for the women to sin, so that I could take on the role and fulfil my end of the bargain. 

Cleanliness is, as they say, next to Godliness. I cleaned up the outside of the cottage a little more on each visit. Maybe it was this which convinced someone that it was lived-in once more, and tempted them to approach the front door, where they'd read my sign. I could see, even from some distance away, that the little flag on the mailbox was up. Someone had left a message. I had a customer! At last!

An address, but no name, and underneath, "please help" and a number 9, underlined many times. Nine weeks, then. 

Of course, they'd wish to stay shrouded in secrecy, as foolish sinners often do. 

What is whispered in the dark shall be heard in the light.

I wrote instructions underneath, printed in clear capital letters: 

COME TO THE WITCH'S COTTAGE ALONE AFTER SUNSET.

I hid it in my purse. That night, I crept out of bed, leaving John snoring. I visited the address, delivered the note, and hurried away, praying I'd not been seen.  I stole back into our bed, and wrapped my arms around his strong back, pressing my lips to his skin. Trying to think only of the baby I would soon be carrying, if I only carried out this grisly task first.

Snakes boiled in my belly all day. I felt sick and couldn't eat, I could barely keep water down. After sunset, I set off for the cottage. Remembering how deathly cold the Glade had been, I took my warmest winter coat.

She was there, waiting for me, white-faced and wide-eyed. Not trusting my voice, I set off up the track without a word, and trusted she wasn't too fool not to follow. 

We blundered through the forest, she at my heels, and I with my faith that the forest would claim us into itself and nudge us in the right direction. I felt cold to my bones, realising my own sin. 

I should put my faith in the Lord; I should ask Him to guide my steps. 

But I had, hadn't I? For so many years. And He'd never rewarded it. 

I marched onward, staying ahead of the girl and keeping my face turned away from her.

As ever, the change was subtle. It was so dark now, that it was impossible to see how much greener everything was. It was the moss, ancient, spongy and vibrant under my feet, that first told me we'd passed out of the normal world. Perhaps we left the world entirely. 

Perhaps God and Jesus never set a sandalled foot here. Perhaps, once I'm here, the sin doesn't count. Caesar's things to Caesar. 

I made longer, stronger strides now, ignoring the girl's gasps at the oddities all around us. The trees dancing, walking, whispering. How quickly such a miracle had become ordinary to me!

Look, there it was! The stand of black trees in the centre of a black clearing. They would've looked dead, burnt even, were they motionless. The green trees that had swayed all around us had had a sleepy quality, but 

trees writhed like angry snakes in the cold moonlight, their branches clattering and heaving without any wind. The place looked black and dead, the ground was black, the air smelled dead and disgusting... But 

I turned to face the young woman shuddering beside me, and God help me she looked like a child. So open, so trusting, it near broke my heart. I hardened it, and spoke to her at last, realising I still didn't even know her name. 

"Undress, walk to the centre, and lie down, Understand?" She nodded. "Well, do it then, girl!" I snapped.

Unlike the last time, I did not turn my face away. 

If she feels shame, that is God's Hand working through my gaze.

I cast about in my mind for the right words. "The earth will take you, and the forest will feast on your little one. Then I'll pull you out." 

but I didn't say this out loud. No, let her carry the black stain on her heart. I would offer no words of comfort.

She wrapped her skinny arms around herself, covering her breasts, and scurried across the black earth. I called after her, hoping even now that she might change her mind, "The Lord has given you a gift, and now you give it to the Devil! God will judge you for it, He will judge us both!" She ran from my voice, and I thought I heard her sobbing. When she lay down, it was not, like the last one I'd seen, in the foetal position. She lay on her back, and crossed her arms over her chest. Like a vampire. It looked, for all the world, like an evil baptism. 

It's Satan's hands pushing her under. But mine must drag her back out. Into the Light.

In the moonlight, I saw teardrops on her face. 

The soil folded over her, just like it had over those kittens' paws... but unlike when I brought the kittens, I felt nothing.

She sank deeper, and her nerve broke. She tried to get up and run, but the earth had her in a demonic grip. The last time, when the witch was alive and brought a girl here, the patient just lay there peacefully, as if sleeping. I remembered thinking she must be drunk. 

Drugged! The old witch must have drugged them! 

She fought, and cried, like the pregnant bitch had fought and cried, and I just watched. Empty.  I'd apologised to that dog. I'd known her name. I'd felt sorry for her, and her puppies. Gift after gift I'd given to this evil place, for the promise of a pregnancy... How far I'd come down such a Black Road that 

But then, the dog had been an innocent victim. A victim of 

, and whatever Thing oozed and beat in the heart of this place. 

Well, let her struggle be manifest of the struggle of her conscience, then!

Finally, her fight lost, she sank from my sight. The last I saw of her was her fingertips reaching, desperately for the sky, grasping at air. The Trees spoke at last, an unctous, undulating sound. Maybe they'd been speaking all along and I hadn't been listening. 

I was never sure, though I'd seen it unfold. Perhaps it was the stress that day, the adrenaline, that made it feel as though Time ran differently. I've heard that soldiers in battle sometimes cannot swear to it whether something lasted five minutes or five hours. Or maybe Time 

Perhaps I'll meet a talking beaver on my way home, 

How long has it been? How long have my thoughts wandered?

Shaking sense into myself, and unable to stand it any longer, I moved into the clearing. Some instinct nagged at me, harried my steps. I broke into a run, sank to my knees and started clawing at the earth. 

I dug deeper, praying each second that the 

second would bring the kiss of her grasping fingertips against mine... And then I remembered that God doesn't walk here. 

I was getting frantic, and glanced about, beginning to worry I was digging in the wrong spot. This 

the middle, wasn't it? This was where she went under?

That's when it happened. It was subtle at first, and I didn't feel it right away because, unlike the girl I'd sent to her d.... to the heart of the clearing, I wasn't nude. The damp dirt was nibbling at my clothes, just as it had folded over the gifts I'd brought: the puppy, the kittens, the pregnant bitch..... the girl. 

I pulled away in horror, but it kept coming back, as inevitable and tireless as ocean waves. I stood, feeling it sucking at my feet. I turned, and ran.

In dreams, when it feels like you're running in treacle, 

is how it feels to run from these Trees. They command the very ground, and they don't give you up easily. 

"No!" I screamed, "No, no, no no-" I yelled it with every agonising step, tormented by the sound of their arms behind me, stretching towards me, tapping, creaking. Terror reaching out of the freezing moonlight to pluck at me with sharp black fingers.

I broke out of the clearing, and sagged to the ground panting as if I'd run many miles. 

I struggled to my feet, and turned to face Them. "It's done then!" I shouted. "It's enough! The price is paid!"

They only laughed, their clicky-clacky wooden laugh.

~no!youwillbringustheseedlings!aspromised!

"I won't! I can't do that again! It's- it's- it's mur-" I bit down, refusing even to say it. As if, by not naming the poison well, it wouldn't matter that I'd drank from it. 

I thought, spite rising in me like bile. I ran blindly, until I was back in the normal, tame forest, and still my feet pounded the path as if Lucifer himself were at my heels.

I slipped back into bed, sweaty and cold, and John moved sleepily into my arms.

"Had an awful dream," I said, my voice cracking and tears coming. 

"Hey," he hugged me close, so warm, so safe, and kissed the wet streaks on my face. His lips trekked over my jaw and nuzzled down my neck, and I knew what this was, what path we were going down. 

Why not, after all? Who knows, maybe the Trees will honour their end of the bargain. 

I lay there, wooden, until he was done. I smiled at him in the half light, reassured him, as we women do, that it was lovely, really. Made excuses. "I'm still a bit tense from that awful dream, that's all." I didn't even jam pillows under my bottom and lie staring at the ceiling, as I usually did afterwards. I rolled over and passed out.

The nameless girl's death ate away at me. 

I was trying to help her, and it went wrong. 

I almost believed my own selfish lies. Almost convinced myself that it wasn't 

fault that she died. Worse, that she died outside of God's sight, and her soul likely never to be Saved. But I still felt unsettled, sick with guilt, sore with it, unable to eat.

You know, don't you? I didn't. I'd never been pregnant before. I only took the test because John pressed it on me. I refused at first, sure I knew what the trouble was, unable to face another negative, not now. 

Joy leapt inside me, even as the search for Maddison Watkins (the lost girl) unfolded and intensified. I booked a doctor's appointment with excitement. Imagine my horror when I discovered that I'd already been pregnant for 

when I took that girl into the forest. I might have already been pregnant at the funeral. 

I resolved never to set foot there again, despite the nightmares that plagued me. One night, 

I lay in the centre of that clearing, like 

did, but instead of arms crossed like a baptizee, mine were outstretched. The Trees surrounded me, leaned over me, groaning with the effort, their roots squeaking... and skewered me to the ground. The Devils's Stigmata. I was unable to escape when another wicked-sharp bough aimed right for my belly.

sat up in a hospital bed, neat and clean. My gown and the sheets were pure, pristine and white. I beamed with a bundle in my arms. John leaned over to kiss the baby, and then pulled back, revulsion on his face. I looked down, confused, because I couldn't see what was wrong with our perfect baby. So much black hair, ten tiny fingers and toes, skin soft like moss, and a gorgeous pale green...

The hullabaloo over the Watkins girl's disappearance had hardly died down when a child went missing in the woods, and the whole ghastly circus began again. After another vanished, parents all over the village told the children not to trespass in the forest, but it was no good. Some were wicked and disobedient, and maybe some were Called there.

I bled. A lot. I was ever at the doctors, who deemed my pregnancy complicated and high risk. They ordered me to bed, where I lay, helpless to protect any children, even mine, from the ravenous Trees.

I disobeyed the doctors. I dragged my heavy body out of bed, to the witch's cottage, and up the horribly familiar track. I wove my way through the sleepy green walkers, let my feet take themselves to the place where the girl died. I stood beyond Their reach. 

"I'll do it!" I shouted. "After the baby is born. Born healthy! 

The crescent moon shining through the excited branches looked like a smug lopsided grin. 

God is Empty, Just Like Me

My fifth entry to the Whispering Woods challenge. All my entries for this challenge are interconnected, but should still work as stand alone stories. I will put my author's note in the comments to avoid messing up the word count. I will link all the stories there, and include a content warning for anyone who feels they need it.

Of course, the old witch couldn't live forever, although to me (and I'm sure to many others) it felt like she had.

As much as I'd despised her, I had to admit that she'd become, in her own way, a pillar in the community. Her funeral was well-attended, the little chapel bursting at its seams with snivelling women of all ages. Each one, surely, remembering their gratitude for her awful service. Each one a wicked, wicked sinner. A flood of gorgeous blooms, perhaps one for each seedling she uprooted and cast away, as if no more than a weed.



God is Empty, Just Like Me

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Easily Spooked

God is Empty, Just Like Me

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Easily Spooked

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